10 Swiss CleanTech startups to watch
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Tomorrow a global strike for climate, led by pupils and students skipping classes to demonstrate, will demand action to reduce climate change. The marches in cities worldwide underline the desire for change. It requires real solutions, so we identified Swiss startups working on products and services to reduce our ecological footprint on the world. We asked them what impact they would have, if money were not issue. Impactful businesses for urgent action.
These Swiss companies offer ways to reduce the energy consumption and pollution of modern life – our homes and how we move people and goods – as well as novel inventions to make energy from renewable sources cheaper, simpler and storable.
“These startups offer amazing solutions for the fight against climate change. The challenge is for them to gain the funding they need to apply their technology at scale,” said Jordi Montserrat, co-founder and managing partner of Venturelab. “Our intensive support helps them build viable businesses and raise the finance to impact the world. Given the urgency of the situation today, we wanted to share the potential of Swiss innovation to improve our world, if money wasn’t a limit."
If $1 billion, less than 0.01% of global GDP, were invested among these companies, read what impact they would have.
If $1 billion, less than 0.01% of global GDP, were invested among these companies, read what impact they would have.
The company’s high-performance natural-fiber materials reduce the weight and cost of vehicle interiors and bodywork. Bcomp’s more economical and more ecological components have already enjoyed product collaborations with Tesla, Volvo and Yamaha.
“Our current plan is to build a 40+ million business by 2023, mainly in the automotive interior and motorsports/sport car bodywork business. This translates into an accumulated CO2 reduction of 80k tons 2019-2023 – while reducing plastic in automotive interior parts by a staggering 85%. 2018 gave the proof on concept, with global leaders launching serial production motorsport bodywork, and automotive interior projects are planned to turn into production by early 2020. An additional 100 million would enable us to target and develop a significantly larger number of projects and markets in parallel, such as aerospace, marine, construction and design, as well as accelerated growth on other continents,” Ebba Carlson, BComp’s marketing and finance director said.
Makes and sells the world’s first commercial carbon removal system, meaning carbon released by burning oil and gas, can be put back into the ground or used sustainably. The company, which raised 30.5 million francs last year to mass produce its technology, wants to capture 1 percent of global emissions in 2025. With plants in Switzerland, Iceland and Italy – the later able to filter 150 tons of CO2 from ambient air annually – the need for Climeworks to scale quickly, is clear.
Co-founder and chief executive officer Jan Wurzbacher noted in a recent New York Times article: “If you take all these numbers from the IPCC, you end up with something like eight to 10 billion tons – gigatons – of CO2 that need to be removed from the air every year, if we are serious about 1.5 or 2 degrees.”
Maritime shipping emits around 1,000 million tons of carbon dioxide each year and is responsible for about 2.5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. International law to control emissions of poisonous sulfur oxides and nitrogen oxides from commercial shipping will enter force in 2020, as the U.N.’s International Maritime Organization aims to reduce the total greenhouse gas emissions from shipping by at least 50 percent by 2050. Daphne’s system of catalysts can transform oily pollutants into agricultural fertilizer, offering ship-owners a sustainable option that can also halve fuel cost consumption.
“With CHF 100 million, Daphne’s technology would directly help the marine industry reduce up to 40,000 tons of toxic NOx and 30,000 tons of toxic SOx emissions per year. Indirectly, it would reduce marine vessels’ CO2 emissions by up to 110,000 tons annually, by improving their fuel-efficiency,” chief executive Juan Mario Michan said.
The ETH Zurich spin-off recycles mineral waste from industry to make non-flammable and environmentally friendly insulation foam that prevents buildings from losing heat.
“Buildings and their constituent materials are dramatically expensive for the environment irrespective of their nature and purpose. Residential and commercial buildings account for approximately 40 percent of total energy consumption worldwide, and 30 percent of global greenhouses gases (GHGs). Insulation materials account for about a fifth of those GHGs emitted during construction. FenX’s vision is to upscaling waste materials to create fully recyclable and non-flammable insulation, that generates between 3 and 10 times less CO2 over its lifetime than current insulation. A win-win alternative that drastically reduces our environmental fingerprint,” said co-founder Etienne Jeoffroy.
The spin-off from the Paul Scherrer Institute makes ion exchange membranes that boost the efficiency of grid energy batteries by 20 percent. Increasing the efficiency of rechargeable vanadium redox flow batteries in turn lowers the cost of energy produced from renewable sources, and provides power when the sun isn’t shining, and the wind isn’t blowing.
“We envision a future where renewable energy is always available. A 100-million-franc investment would allow us, with our customers, supply the most affordable energy storage solutions on the market, and help wind and solar farms outcompete dirty coal and gas generators in providing affordable energy whenever we need it. It would allow us to supply over 10GW of additional energy storage capacity in the next five years, which would prevent the emission of over 10 million tons of CO2 between now and 2040,” Elian Pusceddu, chief executive and co-founder said.
The startup is developing safe, efficient and compact storage units that use hydrogen to capture power from renewables on an industrial, as well as on a domestic scale.
“GRZ would be able to install over 1 GWh of decentralized electric storage capacity. This would enable the efficient use of wind and solar globally, and would cut carbon dioxide emissions by up to 40,000 tons per year!" GRZ's chief executive and co-founder Noris Gallandat wrote.
Made headlines worldwide after independent testing of its commercial solar panel design confirmed a world-record 29 percent yield. The startup has developed a manufacturing process that makes space-grade photovoltaics, previously reserved for satellites, viable for the mass-market. Insolight’s step-change in solar-cell efficiency, validated by the Solar Energy Institute of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, sets the stage for large-scale industrialization.
A 100 million-franc investment would have a staggering impact. "Insolight could go to mass production and deliver the most efficient solar module on the market. This would allow solar electricity to compete with fossil sources on any type of installation," said chief executive Laurent Coulot.
The ETH Zurich spin-off is developing additives to transform construction waste, such as excavation materials, into an ecological, cement-free concrete that’ll reduce the financial and environmental cost of building safe and affordable housing for the extra 2 billion people projected to share our planet by 2050. Oxara’s 'Cleancrete' is as much as 2.5 times cheaper and 20 times more ecological than conventional concrete.
“Our sustainability and environmental impact would remain the same: enabling access to greener and affordable housing,” said founder Gnanli Landrou.
Has developed processes to recycle car and truck tires, giving them a second life in everyday plastic products, as well as in the asphalt used for roads. The company estimates two billion scrap tires have been discarded. Its technology provides an economic incentive for them to be reclaimed and recycled.
“With 100 million francs, TRS Intelligent Compounding’s capacity would have a concrete and real impact recycling material for high-end industrial products,” TRS' chief executive officer Staffan Ahlgren said, noting the possibility for his company’s recycled rubber to be used for a fifth of new tire production, and to double the life-span of asphalt roads.
A distributed solar utility that manages 500 solar plants in Switzerland and is expanding into Europe. The company sells solar energy to its customers directly from their own roof. Younergy designs and installs solar photovoltaics and battery systems for free, so the customers only pay for the energy they use.
"Because we're ultimately a platform that connects sources of projects with sources of capital, each euro invested in Younergy has a multiplier effect of roughly 50. With 100 million euros we would be able to help deploy 5 billion euros worth of rooftop solar projects in Europe alone. That would translate into CO2 savings of 100 million tons, assuming solar replaces coal in the electricity mix," said Younergy's chief executive Pedro Miranda.
